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IFAW: Commercial Seal Hunt Opens, Continues to Require Government Support

Monday, 14 April, 2014

TORONTO

After over 30 years of trying to revive the commercial seal hunt, and over $50 million in government support, the hunt will proceed again in 2014 despite the lack of markets.

“This hunt has been on life support for 20 years. It will never come back to previous levels. When will governments in Ottawa and St. John’s start to think about the future, and help sealers transition out of this failed industry?” says Sheryl Fink, Wildlife Campaigns Director of IFAW Canada.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government continues to waste millions fighting an international trade dispute with the European Union — a dispute they lost in the first round, and have recently appealed. According to Fink, “Europeans don’t want products from an inhumane, wasteful, and unnecessary industry. Why should we try to force them to take something they don’t want?”

Key Facts:
• Total Allowable Catch has been set at 400,000 for 2014; however, this number is purely political. As in recent years, the catch will not reach anywhere near this number.
• Total catches in past years have been: 89,030 in 2013, 69,139 in 2012, 40,370 in 2011, and 69,101 in 2010.
• The hunt is primarily for the pelt, with some blubber used. Based on numbers from 2011, 90% of the meat from the carcass is left on the ice. In 2013, the Canadian Government reported no meat being landed.
• Opinion polling indicates that 71% of Canadians do not think the commercial seal hunt should receive any government funding.
• Three quarters of Newfoundlanders support funding to help sealers transition, and half of sealers would stop sealing if they had some government support.
• 1 in 5 Newfoundlanders oppose the seal hunt, and 71% think it makes sense to question it when it requires government funding to continue.
• Carino, the only remaining seal pelt processor, has received over $7 million in government loans over the past 2 years. It has now turned to private lending institutions for financing.
• IFAW does not, and has never, campaigned against the Inuit hunt, or the personal hunt of seals for food in Newfoundland.
• Despite the EU ban's exemption for seal products from indigenous hunts (in which the whole animal is used) the Canadian government has done nothing to provide Inuit with tools necessary to distinguish their product.
• Greenland is able to sell pelts within the EU from their subsistence hunt because the government put a labeling system in place.

About IFAW

Founded in 1969 to end the commercial seal hunt, IFAW now rescues and protects animals around the world. With projects in more than 40 countries, IFAW rescues individual animals, works to prevent cruelty to animals, and advocates for the protection of wildlife and habitats. For more information, visit www.ifaw.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.